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Druids as tanks
thumb|The Druid Bear Form Shapeshift into a bear, increasing Attack Power by 3 * level, Armor contribution from items by 180%/450%, and Health by Y. Also protects the caster from polymorph effects and allows the use of various bear abilities. One of three tanking classes in the game, the druid is able to enter bear form and take the role of Tanking. The Bear Form The druid has two tanking forms: Bear Form obtained by quest at level 10 and Dire Bear Form obtained via trainer at level 40. The forms are the same except that Dire Bear has an even greater armor boost compared to bear form. The Bear Form is the druid tank form. When a druid shapeshifts into bear the following things happen: * Health: As of Patch 2.0.3, the Druid's base health is increased by 25% * Attack Power: The Druid gains Attack Power equal to their level * 3 (180 Attack at level 60). Base DPS from weapons are discounted, although bonus stats from them still count. * Armor: The druid gains a 180%/450% armor boost from items (depending on Bear/Dire Bear form). The bonus is additive, meaning that if you have 1000 armor from items, Bear form will grant you: 1000 + 1000 * 1.8 = 2800 armor from items, while Dire Bear will grant you 1000 + 1000 * 4.5 = 5500 armor. * Threat (Aggro): The druid will obtain a 30% increase in all threat generated. This is the same bonus that the warrior is granted by Defensive Stance. Advantages of a druid tank A Bear Tank specialized Feral Druid will have more armor and more hit points than a comparably geared Warrior. Druids can tank multiple mobs easier than Warriors, due to Swipe. Bear tanking abilities (e.g Maul) scale very well with gear, though as of Patch 2.0.3, the threat generation from Maul is additive, similar to a Warrior's Heroic Strike. Druids are immune to Polymorph and Humanoïd Mind Control effects (prevents Priest MC, but not Charmed effects like Hakkar the Soulflayer's ability). Bears can't be Disarmed. Druids can spec into the Feral Charge talent, which is similar to a Warrior's Intercept, which allows them to almost instantly re-engage a mob after getting knocked back. Disadvantages of a druid tank Druid tanks do not have the ability to parry attacks, unlike Warriors. However, with the 2.0.0 change to agility needed for 1% of dodge, a druid's overall dodge is as high as the combined totals of dodge and parry for most warriors. Being unable to use shields, they cannot mitigate damage through blocking like warriors. Due to the lack of +Defense rating itemization on leather, they are more susceptible to critical hit attacks from boss level mobs, although as of 2.0.1 they now have a talent that reduces that chance to be crit by up to 3% and with the addition of resilience, crit can be reduced further, but this is primarily a PvP stat at the moment. Their lack of a Shield Block ability means they also have no means of avoiding crushing blow attacks from boss level mobs. Druids cannot use consumables (e.g. potions, healthstones, etc.) in bear form. Druids have limited "oh crap" options (Druids only have Frenzied Regeneration in Bear form. In some situations they can risk preforming a double-shift to use a consumable or cast spells like Barkskin+Tranquility, Regrowth/Rejuvenation, or Nature's Swiftness+Healing Touch if the druid has specialized the Restoration Talent, Nature's Swiftness). Druids do not have an innate ability to counter fear. While Fear Ward and Tremor Totems are the preferred way to counter Fear, Druids may also make use of one of two trinkets (the Insignia of the Alliance/Insignia of the Horde and the Glimmering Mithril Insignia if the druid has chosen Blacksmithing) but these are reliant on long cooldowns. Tanking-related talents All of the druid trees have talents which improve tanking ability in some way. This also means most "tanking-specced" druids will have talent points in all trees. The classic druid tanking spec is 11/33/7. * With 5/5 Naturalist, Tier 2 Restoration: Physical damage done is increased by 10% (resulting in effectively a 10% increase in threat caused). * With 1/1 Omen of Clarity, Tier 3 Restoration: Allows the druid to enter a clearcasting state on a melee attack, reducing the mana/energy/rage cost of the next ability by 100% (effectively giving a rage-free maul or swipe. As a sidenote: OoC can proc on any melee hit, making it possible to Swipe spam with it indefinitely). * With 5/5 Ferocity, Tier 1 Feral Combat: Rage cost on Maul and Swipe is reduced by 5. * With 5/5 Feral Instinct, Tier 2 Feral Combat: Threat generated is increased by 15% while in Bear Form (Threat modifier goes from 30% to 45%). * With 3/3 Thick Hide, Tier 2 Feral Combat: Armor contribution from items in any form is increased by 10%. The Bear Form multiplier comes on top of this, giving an effective 4.6*1.1 (506%) armor multiplier for a druid in bear form with this talent. * With 1/1 Feral Charge, Tier 3 Feral Combat: Allows the druid to charge in Bear Form. This ability works like a warrior's Intercept except it does not require stance switching and is on 15 second cooldown. * With 3/3 Sharpened Claws, Tier 3 Feral Combat: Critical Strike chance is increased by 6% while in Bear Form. * With 3/3 Predatory Strikes, Tier 4 Feral Combat: Attack Power in increased by 150% of level (to a max of 90 Attack Power at level 60). * With 2/2 Primal Fury, Tier 4 Feral Combat: The druid gains 5 rage for every critical hit they do in Bear Form. * With 1/1 Faerie Fire (Feral), Tier 5 Feral Combat: Decreases the armor of the target by 505. This ability does not stack with itself, does not cost any rage and is on a 6 second cooldown. Also generates a small amount of threat. * With 2/2 Savage Fury, Tier 5 Feral Combat: +20% damage bonus to Maul and Swipe. * With 5/5 Heart of the Wild, Tier 6 Feral Combat: Stamina is increased by 20% granting an additional Health boost. * With 1/1 Leader of the Pack, Tier 7 Feral Combat: +5% Crit chance for all ranged and melee within 45 yards of the Druid. * With 5/5 Furor, Tier 1 Restoration: The druid gains 10 Rage everytime they switch to Bear/Dire Bear Form. * With 2/2 Improved Enrage, Tier 2 Restoration: The druid gains 10 additional rage instantly upon using Enrage. Note: With the druid talent changes (some quite old) this list is no longer accurate. This is the PvE tanking spec 0/47/14. Various Aspects of Druid Tanking Druids have tanked raid instances and boss encounters such as Nefarian in Blackwing Lair, despite the druid Class Call. A Druid in Bear form is in itself a very viable tank. A Protection-specialized Warrior is usually the most accepted Main Tank for large 40-man raids but in many cases, a Feral Druid can do the job as well. Damage Mitigation and Damage Avoidance Since druids cannot Parry or Block, druids have fewer ways of avoiding damage. As such, they must specialize their gear in order to maximize their advantages in damage mitigation. They rely heavily on their armor to mitigate physical damage and their large hit point pool to provide a more comfortable buffer for their healers. Druids absorb devastating hits easier so they do well on mobs and bosses that hit hard. A Bear Tank's strategy is to absorb critical strikes and crushing blows, relying on the high armor and stamina to survive the big hits instead of trying to avoid them. Since they rely more on mitigation than avoidance, the smoother damage taken can be easier to heal as longer cast heals can be used without as much fear of overhealing. Despite the fact that druids cannot Parry or Block, +Defense gear is still useful for them, helping their Dodge as well as decreasing the amount of Criticals and normal hits suffered. Unfortunately the leather itemization of +Defense is currently almost nonexistent (a fact that will change with Socketed items in The Burning Crusade). Many Bear tanks currently focus on Agility instead of +Defense as it is easier to find and can be a more efficient way of raising their Dodge percentage. Agility has the added bonus of increasing the chance of a Critical Strike and thus aggro generation, and agility increases armor, allowing the druid to take more damage when the hits do land. Poor itemization and the lack of Defensive Stance also hurts druid tanks in resist fights where, once again they must rely on their increased health to survive long enough for their healers to pull them through. Threat Generation Bear threat generating abilities scale up very well with gear since they generate threat in a different manner. Bear Tanks rely a lot more on a multiplicative damage based threat generation while other threat generation abilities rely more on additive "innate threat" skills like Sunder Armor and Revenge. This means that as they start gearing up, a Bear Tank's threat generation abilities scales up better with the increases in Attack Power and Critical Strike rate as compared to Warriors. Druid Threat Multipliers, pre-2.0.3 Prior to the 2.0.3 patch, Bear Tank's had both Threat-only multipliers and Damage-based threat multipliers for their two main threat generation skills. The formula was: Damage * Skill's threat multiplier * Bear form multiplier = threat generated The Bear form threat multiplier is identical to a Warrior's in Defensive Stance of 1.3 and just like 3/3 Defiance, 3/3 Feral Instinct adds another 15% for a total threat multiplier of 1.45. The Skill threat multiplier of Maul and Swipe were 1.75, meaning they generated 175% of the equivalent mitigated damage-based threat done before any other multipliers. The talents Naturalist and Savage Fury add 1.1 and 1.2 multipliers respectively to damage done which in turn indirectly increased overall threat generated. Achieving Critical Mauls for over 1,000 in damage versus raid bosses is entirely possible for well geared Bear Tanks. Although auto-attacks and non-damage based threat like Faerie Fire(Feral) and Demoralizing Shout add to overall Threat Per Second, lets take the the example a non-critical Maul that hits for 500 damage which is easily achievable even in all Blue gear. Its total threat generated was given by the formula: 500 * 1.75 * 1.45 = 1268 This means that for every Maul that did 500 damage which a Bear Tank landed, a Mage with no threat reduction in place would have needed to output 1268 damage (507 DPS) to generate the same amount of threat or generate 20% more damage in order to pull aggro at range meaning 1522 damage (609 DPS). Also, given that with raid buffs a druid can easily reach Mauls for 600+ non-critical and that Druids also have the option of using Swipe as a rage dump and that a well-geared Bear Tank can have over 30% Critical Strike Rate fully buffed, it became clear that Druids could generate an excellent amount of threat. This also meant that a Bear Tank's threat generation and thus aggro-holding ability benefitted more from damage and crit increasing buffs, as well as armor reducing debuffs like Sunder Armor, Expose Armor and Faerie Fire when applied to a trash mob/boss. Druid Threat since 2.0.3 Starting in patch 2.0.3, Maul and Swipe no longer multiply their Threat by 1.75. Instead, Maul adds a flat amount of Threat to the base Threat caused by its damage (similar to the Warrior's Heroic Strike), and Swipe causes no additional Threat beyond that caused by the damage it inflicts. Bear Form still multiplies all Threat done by 1.3 (or by 1.45 with 3/3 Feral Instinct), however, including the additional Threat added to a Maul. Snap Aggro Druids have both a single target Taunt and an AOE Taunt. If the Bear Tank in question is a Feral Druid, they will most likely also have the talent of Faerie Fire(Feral) which requires no rage and greatly assists in initial aggro establishment as well as allowing a druid to perform a ranged pull without having to shift out of Bear form and use a mana based ranged spell. Feral Faerie Fire's armor debuff does not stack like Sunder Armor does, though each application continues to generate some threat even when the debuff is already applied. Knockbacks Feral specialized Druids can almost immediately recover from knockbacks using Feral Charge. Fear Some encounters, notably Magmadar, Onyxia, and Nefarian, are made easier with fear-eliminating abilities. A Druid is not as viable in these encounters as a Main Tank without the use of Fear Ward or Tremor Totems. Druids can also use fear-dispelling trinkets such as Insignia of the Alliance/Insignia of the Horde and the Glimmering Mithril Insignia, although these are all on high cooldowns. Disarm Druids cannot be disarmed in bear form, as they attack with natural weapons. This can be rather useful in encounters such as General Rajaxx. Emergency Buttons Druids have Frenzied Regeneration, consuming 10 rage per second for 10 seconds to heal for up to 200 health each tick and up to 300 on criticals of the ability, as each tick has the chance to critical heal. This ability is on a 3 minute cooldown. In addition, they have the ability to use trinkets. In certain dire situations, a druid can switchstance from caster, and use Barkskin and Tranquility as a last-ditch effort, although it is a very hit-or-miss tactic. Another more reliable, although far less dramatic, tactic is to use the talent (if you have specialized in restoration for it) Nature's Swiftness and a high ranked Healing Touch. Druids can use items which are typically used pre-fight such as Flasks and several longer duration potions. However, as noted before, Druids cannot use consumables while in form, so they cannot be reapplied if they are somehow dispelled. Weapon Procs Druids cannot utilize "Chance on Hit" procs on weapons, precluding the use of Windfury, Crusader, and other enchants. They can, however, make use of "Chance on Hit" abilities in other slots (Heroism and Maelstorm cards). Polymorphing Bosses When a tank is polymorphed, they lose aggro. Druids are completely immune to polymorph in Bear Form, so they will not lose aggro. This comes in handy with encounters that Polymorph, such as: Jin'do the Hexxer and Blackwing Spellbinders in Blackwing Lair. Bear Form Tanking Gear A list of Bear form tanking gear for a level 60 druid can be found here: Bear Tanking Gear. Category:Druids